Co-firing of paper mill sludge and coal in an industrial circulating fluidized bed boiler.

Co-firing of coal and paper mill sludge was conducted in a 103 MWth circulating fluidized bed boiler to investigate the effect of the sludge feeding rate on emissions of SOx, NOx, and CO. The preliminary results show that emissions of SOx and Nx decrease with increasing sludge feeding rate, but CO shows the reverse tendency due to the decrease in combustion temperature caused by a large amount of moisture in the sludge. All emissions met the local environmental requirements. The combustion ashes could be recycled as feed materials in the cement manufacturing process.